Saturday, January 30, 2010
the call to challenge
hey LOG,
as some of you may know, I'm heading to Manila tmr morning on a 6am flight and will only return on 8 Feb which is a Monday. So i won't be seeing you guys for 2 sundays even though its only a week long =( a conversation in Anne's car last night made me realise something, something that I had been struggling with. Hence, before i fly, i want to share it with everyone.
We say we want to challenge each other but usually we seek a fellow community member's opinion before we make the challenge to a particular person. But often enough, we may be scared of judgement from the community member that we seek opinion from and we end up not challenging the person we want to. We may also end up feeling that we are the only one with such an opinion and hence brush it off as being oversensitive ourselves. If you are agreeing with what I have typed above, that would be that there are many challenges that we could have made to each other without fear of being judged or fear of being labelled self-righteous. So my brothers and sisters, I urge you to make those challenges you feel that you should.
And so I would take this chance to share about what I feel too. This was supposed to be a joint post with Soo, but we did not have sufficient time to come and craft it together. So I will embark it myself and now its solely my opinion on this.
I feel that I'm a very radical person and hence, there are things that I may feel difficult to accept. It came to a point when I asked God whether this insistence towards radicalness is good, because it may make me an overly critical person. But I guess, this doubt had surfaced from the fear of being judged for judging others. Then Soo enlightened me with his words of wisdom, that there's a difference between judging and realising that the person is not following God or His ways. The burden I had became lighter because I always reproach myself for judging others but perhaps it was just a call for me to challenge that brother or sister.
Hearing from the SOW people how brother fritz, their main preacher for the first few weeks, emphasized on "God or die," I was happy because it was this radical belief that I hold firm to - that those who do not follow in His ways will not have life, true life. And it let me to think about whether LOG was radical in living out our lives. are we?
One particular thing that I want to challenge the community now is the same reason why me and Soo wanted to co-author this piece - stems from our collective opposition towards clubbing. It was apt that the sow guys and me went through the Theology of the Body session and two teachings reinforced our opinions. 1. Men are responsible for Women's dignity and Women are responsible for Men's dignity. 2. Stay away from temptation
1. Men are responsible for Women's dignity by not looking at them as objects of desire; Women are responsible for Men's dignity by not dressing scantily so as to cause Men to sin.
2. Man (note the "a"), after the fall of Adam and Eve to temptation, is in a state of concupiscence - a state of sin/chaos you would say. And hence, Man need to differentiate love from lust by the power of the Holy Spirit to return to the original state of innocence. (all of this from the TOB). Hence, by staying away from temptation, it is a first step of returning to that state of innocence and also to welcome the Holy Spirit into our lives to transform our sinful nature.
There can be justifications for going for it, provided that they are just, and that the justification is 100% the reason you are going for it - that is how radical it can be. Going by the reasoning of (1) above, it is not only the guys' fault if they are going there for the wrong reasons - its also because girls are there to give them the chance. I know there still can be many reasons why you would choose that its ok but this is my challenge to you.
Mark
the call to challenge
hey LOG,
as some of you may know, I'm heading to Manila tmr morning on a 6am flight and will only return on 8 Feb which is a Monday. So i won't be seeing you guys for 2 sundays even though its only a week long =( a conversation in Anne's car last night made me realise something, something that I had been struggling with. Hence, before i fly, i want to share it with everyone.
We say we want to challenge each other but usually we seek a fellow community member's opinion before we make the challenge to a particular person. But often enough, we may be scared of judgement from the community member that we seek opinion from and we end up not challenging the person we want to. We may also end up feeling that we are the only one with such an opinion and hence brush it off as being oversensitive ourselves. If you are agreeing with what I have typed above, that would be that there are many challenges that we could have made to each other without fear of being judged or fear of being labelled self-righteous. So my brothers and sisters, I urge you to make those challenges you feel that you should.
And so I would take this chance to share about what I feel too. This was supposed to be a joint post with Soo, but we did not have sufficient time to come and craft it together. So I will embark it myself and now its solely my opinion on this.
I feel that I'm a very radical person and hence, there are things that I may feel difficult to accept. It came to a point when I asked God whether this insistence towards radicalness is good, because it may make me an overly critical person. But I guess, this doubt had surfaced from the fear of being judged for judging others. Then Soo enlightened me with his words of wisdom, that there's a difference between judging and realising that the person is not following God or His ways. The burden I had became lighter because I always reproach myself for judging others but perhaps it was just a call for me to challenge that brother or sister.
Hearing from the SOW people how brother fritz, their main preacher for the first few weeks, emphasized on "God or die," I was happy because it was this radical belief that I hold firm to - that those who do not follow in His ways will not have life, true life. And it let me to think about whether LOG was radical in living out our lives. are we?
One particular thing that I want to challenge the community now is the same reason why me and Soo wanted to co-author this piece - stems from our collective opposition towards clubbing. It was apt that the sow guys and me went through the Theology of the Body session and two teachings reinforced our opinions. 1. Men are responsible for Women's dignity and Women are responsible for Men's dignity. 2. Stay away from temptation
1. Men are responsible for Women's dignity by not looking at them as objects of desire; Women are responsible for Men's dignity by not dressing scantily so as to cause Men to sin.
2. Man (note the "a"), after the fall of Adam and Eve to temptation, is in a state of concupiscence - a state of sin/chaos you would say. And hence, Man need to differentiate love from lust by the power of the Holy Spirit to return to the original state of innocence. (all of this from the TOB). Hence, by staying away from temptation, it is a first step of returning to that state of innocence and also to welcome the Holy Spirit into our lives to transform our sinful nature.
There can be justifications for going for it, provided that they are just, and that the justification is 100% the reason you are going for it - that is how radical it can be. Going by the reasoning of (1) above, it is not only the guys' fault if they are going there for the wrong reasons - its also because girls are there to give them the chance. I know there still can be many reasons why you would choose that its ok but this is my challenge to you.
Mark